Flowmeters provide information about materials being transferred through a conduit. For example, mass flowmeters provide a direct indication of the mass of material being transferred through a conduit. Similarly, density flowmeters, or densitometers, provide an indication of the density of material flowing through a conduit. Mass flowmeters also may provide an indication of the density of the material.
Coriolis-type mass flowmeters are based on the well-known Coriolis effect, in which material flowing through a rotating conduit becomes a radially travelling mass that is affected by a Coriolis force and therefore experiences an acceleration. Many Coriolis-type mass flowmeters induce a Coriolis force by sinusoidally oscillating a conduit about a pivot axis orthogonal to the length of the conduit. In such mass flowmeters, the Coriolis reaction force experienced by the travelling fluid mass is transferred to the conduit itself and is manifested as a deflection or offset of the conduit in the direction of the Coriolis force vector in the plane of rotation.
Energy is supplied to the conduit by a driving mechanism that applies a periodic force to oscillate the conduit. One type of driving mechanism is an electromechanical driver that imparts a force proportional to an applied voltage. In an oscillating flowmeter, the applied voltage is periodic, and is generally sinusoidal. The period of the input voltage is chosen so that the motion of the conduit matches a resonant mode of vibration of the conduit. This reduces the energy needed to sustain oscillation. An oscillating flowmeter may use a feedback loop in which a sensor signal that carries instantaneous frequency and phase information related to oscillation of the conduit is amplified and fed back to the conduit using the electromechanical driver.